


You always said pain would make us strong

by maryloohoo



Category: The Grinning Man - Philips & Teitler/Grose & Morris & Philips & Teitler/Grose
Genre: Childlike optimism, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Poor sewing skills, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25804633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryloohoo/pseuds/maryloohoo
Summary: Dea grows up watching the boy she loves suffer, and does her best to help
Relationships: Grinpayne/Dea
Kudos: 11





	You always said pain would make us strong

**Author's Note:**

> As I have it, Grinpayne was 6 when he found Dea in the snow, so the age gap is 6 years. I've also gone this whole time believing that Grinpayne's chronic pain came from nerve damage from being out in the cold so long on the night he was cut, so that's what I've gone with here.

Dea is five, and she can’t figure out why Grinpayne is crouched on the ground.

“Grinpayne? Grinpayne?!”

“I’m here, Dea”, he whispers, “I’m still right here”. A hand reaches out and grabs onto hers tightly. Very tightly. Too tightly..

Dea drops down to one knee, guessing where Grinpayne’s head is from the direction his voice is coming.

“What’s wrong?” she asks

“Nothing” he replies, sounding unsteady.

“Then why are you squeezing my hand so hard?” she counters.

Grinpayne’s grip on her hand loosens for a second, before reflexively tightening again as he lets out a groan.

“You’re hurting” says Dea.

“No, Dea-“ he starts

“Why are you hurting? Did you fall down” she asks curiously. She hadn’t heard a shout, hadn’t heard anything hitting the ground. One second Grinpayne’s voice was coming from it’s normal spot about 3 inches above her head and then the next it wasn’t.

“No, I didn’t-“ he pauses to take in as deep a breath as he can, “I didn’t fall”. He tenses up again, shaking as the pain washes over him. Dea waits patiently for it to pass, her hand coming up to rest on his back between his shoulder blades. She can feel how tight his muscles are, how every breathe comes in with shaking effort. She doesn’t know if she’s ever hurt this much.

After a few minutes, she feels it all go out in a whoosh. He drops all the way to the ground, and she joins him, sitting with her legs crossed as he pants beside her, slowly getting his breathing back to normal.

“What was that?” she asks.

He sighs. “Dea I don’t know if I can explain the whole thing to you…”

“It’s not your face is it?” she prompts.

“No, it’s not my face”, he answers.

“Then what is it?” she asks.

“It’s the rest of me” he replies.

“The rest of you hurts?” she asks, trying to understand.

“Yes”, he replies.

“Why?”

“I don’t know”

“Does Father know about it?”

“Yes he does”

“Does he know why?”

“Dea…“ Grinpayne says, with all the sternness an 11 year old boy can muster.

“Don’t ‘Dea…’ ” she says, “You can’t hide anything from me, you know”.

Grinpayne laughs, “Yes I know”.

“So tell me”, Dea says. She waits expectantly for a few moments.

Grinpayne sighs dramatically, and then says “I don’t know why I hurt so much sometimes, Father says it’s got something to do with being out in the cold so long on the night that I found you-”, on ‘you’, Grinpayne pokes Dea in the nose, making her jump, “and he has medicine that he gives me whenever it happens”.

Dea only has one thing on her mind. “Does the medicine make you feel better?” she asks.

“Yes, much better” Grinpayne assures her.

She is glad. “I don’t want you to ever hurt, Grinpayne”, she says, “I love you”. He gives her a hug, then releases her.

“Why don’t you have some with you right now?” she asks him.

“I’m not sure” he says, sounding thoughtful, “I should ask Father to give me some to have with me”.

“Ask Father to give me some to have with me”, Dea says, “so that I can help you”.

“You already help me, Dea”, Grinpayne says. She smiles.

——–

Dea is 10, and she believes that all they need to do is find a kind fairy and ask her to woosh Grinpayne’s pain away.

“A fairy?” he says with the smallest of chuckles.

“Yes a fairy” Dea answers, with all the confidence of someone who fully believes in the magic that lies hidden in the world’s darkness.

She hears him take another sip of his Crimson Lethe, before answering, “And where, snowdrop, would we find a fairy?”

Dea is surprised; surely a great large 16 year old should know this better than her.

“You don’t go find a fairy”, she explains patiently to the silly boy sitting next to her, “You do something kind and the fairy comes to you”.

“Something kind?” Grinpayne says, sounding dazed.

Dea grimaces. Turning her face away from his voice quickly, hoping he doesn’t see her expression, she answers, “Yes”. 

She would never say it to anyone, not Grinpayne and DEFINITELY not their father, but this is always the part that she hates the most. The Crimson Lethe makes Grinpayne’s pain go away and for that she is eternally grateful, but the confusion and cloudiness that come after make her feel…unsettled. An unfortunate side effect of the medicine, Ursus has explained to the both of them, and it always wore off in time, but she still felt bad for the way it made Grinpayne so confused. She feels his weight shift as he rises from their seat on the back of the cart, and she lets out a plaintive noise.

“No,” she whines, “don’t go”.

“I’m not going far, Dea”, Grinpayne says slowly, “I have to get something. Don’t move”. She hears him climb back into the cart and start clambering around behind her, opening cabinets and drawers by the sound of it.

“Did you lose something?” she asks, laughing.

“No, I…”he trails off, thinking, “I just can’t remember where I put it”. He rummages around some more, and then makes a satisfied noise. Closing a drawer with a bang, his footsteps come back around to Dea’s side and he crouches down next to her.

“Something kind” is all he says, and she feels cloth being pushed against her hands.

“What’s this?” she asks, confused.

He is silent for a second, and then says quietly “It’s a skirt”.

“A skirt?” she asks, “What kind of skirt?”

“The kind of skirt that will fit a Dea” he says, still quiet but sounding significantly more pleased with himself.

“It’s for me?!” Dea squeaks. 

“Mm-hm” she hears Grinpayne hum.

“Where did you get it?” she asks.

“I made it”, he says, even more quietly than before. 

Gasping in delight, Dea quickly runs her hands over the fabric, feeling a strange mix of textures and seams at odd angles from each other. It takes all of her willpower not to laugh at what she can only assume is the most ragged looking skirt someone could make. But then she thinks about who made it, and she smiles.

“Thank you, Grinpayne” she says. He plants a small kiss on the top of her head.

After a moment, she yells out “OKAY FAIRY. YOU CAN COME OUT NOW AND MAKE GRINPAYNE STOP HURTING”. She waits for a moment in the silence, but hears nothing but their own breathing. She sighs.

“Well, I think that was definitely kind enough” she says to Grinpayne, reaching her hand out. He takes it in his own.

“Crimson Lethe will be enough for now, snowdrop,” he says to her, “but thank you for trying”.

She nods. “It’ll go away one day” she says, “just you wait and see”.

——–

Dea is 18, and she thinks that she’s in love with the boy in front of her. And to her utter amazement and wonder, she’s pretty sure that he loves her back.

“Dea”, he says, in that way he does, where it sounds like her name is as heavy as the world and as soft as a sunbeam.

She says nothing, just lets herself revel in the feeling of his fingers brushing her hair, her ear, her jawline.

“Dea”, he says again, even quieter, even closer.

Her eyes widen, anticipating, and she feels his face move closer to hers and-

“Dea,” he chokes out, suddenly leaning heavily on her thin shoulders.

She calmly reaches her hands up to his arms to steady him, and calls out as loud as she can, “Mojo! Come here!” 

Turning her attention back to the gasping boy in front of her, she says “I’m going to crouch down in a second and you’re going to come down with me, alright Grinpayne?”

“Mn” is all he manages in reply, but she’s accustomed enough to this to know that means yes.

Dea gives his shoulders a quick squeeze before slowly lowering herself to the ground, her heart following after. She hears his breathing start to even out as the initial shock of the pain wears off. Knowing that he’ll be alright enough to speak now, she returns to a familiar theme.

“Are you remembering anything?” she asks

“I don’t know”, Grinpayne replies, “everything is just white and wet and cold”.

“All the snow”, Dea says. He squeezes her shoulder in confirmation, so she continues “Is there anything in the snow?”

“Just footprints” he says, “no faces. Nothing sharp”.

Dea hears a bark from her side, and reaches her hand out, feeling Mojo press his head into her palm.

“Oh, good boy”, she coos, trailing her hand down his neck and to the small bottle hanging from his collar in a pouch. She hears Grinpayne huff out the tiniest laugh, which is a good sign. She holds out the bottle in his general direction and waits for him to reach out and take it. Which he does, managing to get both the bottle and her hand at the same time.

Taking the bottle with his other hand, he pulls her hand closer to his mouth and presses a gentle kiss to it before letting it go.

Dea can’t stop smiling as she puts her hand back onto Grinpayne’s shoulder, hearing him uncork the bottle and take a sip.

“You’ll see it eventually” she says to him.

“See what?” he asks.

“Who those footprints in the snow belong to” she answers.

Dea can practically hear his scowl. “Right”, he mutters.

“You will!” she says more insistently

“And if I never do?” Grinpayne asks, with more intensity than she’s used to.

“That’s no way to think”, she says, running her hand through his curls.

He sighs, and leans his head forward until it’s resting against her shoulder.

“You will”, she says again, holding him close to her, “you’ll see the truth and we’ll finally have an answer for all of this”.

“And then we’ll go away”, he mumbles.

“Yes Grinpayne”, Dea whispers, “then we’ll go far away from everything that hurts you”.

——–

Dea is 20, and she knows now that her love’s pain will never go away. From the scythe, from the snow, from the shattered memories that lay in pieces in his mind for so long. As she sits on a large stone in front of some sea, stroking the fretted head that lays in her lap, she knows that the darkness will always be there. He wasn’t born broken, like her, but his nerves and his mind will never again be the way they were before that day in the snow. The pain will always come again, like this, and it will always have to be lived through.

Feeling the tension melt out of his body, she smiles slightly. Even when the pain does come, she will always be there to live through it with him. The smile grows bigger as she feels his hand reach up to brush her cheek. She catches it in her own and plants a small kiss on it.

“Is it over?” she asks.

“For now”, he replies. He winds his other arm around her waist and hugs in tightly to her body. 

They sit there in silence for a moment, maybe two. 

“I’m glad”, Grinpayne whispers suddenly.

“About what?” Dea whispers back.

He doesn’t say anything, just hugs her even tighter, but she is satisfied nonetheless. Maybe someone else would’ve asked for an explanation, but she can feel his thoughts hanging in the air between them like the warmth of the setting sun. 

“You are here, I am here”, they say, “melancholy but content, pained but loved, broken but whole. How could I not be glad?”

“You are right, Grinpayne”, she whispers to him, before dropping a kiss onto his curls, “You are right”.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm @look-at-your-shattered-children on tumblr. Come hang out! :)


End file.
